14699/The Tower is Tall

The Tower is Tall
Date of Scene:	16 April 2023
Location:	Penthouse - Historic Clocktower
Synopsis:	No description
Cast of Characters:	Barbara Gordon, Jason Todd

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Barbara Gordon has posed:
The GGE Blimp was docked with the Clocktower.

But it is preparing to depart. Using an AI Captain to pilot it, the massive airship is firing up its engines and heading away from the building now for its next stop across town.

Barbara is out on the balcony outside of her penthouse watching the ship leave. She's wearing a dark grey navy peacoat with her arms crossed over her stomach. Her red hair is tied up in a bun on top of her head, and she's wearing a pair of black framed glasses. A few tendrils of red hair are framing her face, and they're blowing gently at the sides of her face.

Jason, upon arrival, will be guided to where Barbara is by the Oracle AI system that runs the whole tower, and since he has security clearance he's permitted right up in to her penthouse, with her visibly outside on the balcony through some of the windows along the walls, let alone the clock face on that side of the building itself.

Jason Todd has posed:
Down on the streets, a cherry red '69 Mustang had pulled up just in time to see the blimp undock and begin to put distance between itself and the mooring point on the Tower.

Jason entered and, with the body language of someone who knows what the building is, what it's for, but has almost zero experience navigating inside. Still. How hard is it to use an elevator? When in doubt punch several buttons that look like they might be in the right neihgborhood. Eventually he'll get lucky and find where he's trying to go. Or someone else will find him.

As it turned out Oracle ignored his button mashing; he seriously tried a version of up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start. ONly there weren't enough buttons in the elevator and they weren't in the proper arrangement for that to actually work.

As it happens Oracle delivers the Wayward Bat directly to the penthouse.

Jason's in civvies, at least, given his use of the front door. He's wearing a Van Halen 5150 tee shirt, black jeans with a ripped out knee, black Adidas and his usual gray leather jacket over it all.

Seeing the redhead out on the balcony, he mutters quietly, "Thanks, uh, Oracle.." sparing a glance to the .. elevator? The ceiling? 'She' is everywhere after all.

Making his way to the balcony he slows at the doors.

"Hey..." because what else is he going to say? It isn't like they've talked much since he "came back", right?

Barbara Gordon has posed:
The Oracle AI also told Barbara that Jason was here, just prior to his arrival out on to the balcony.

Thusly, when he does step up to the door, and moves through it, Barbara is already turning to greet him with a smile. "Hey back at ya." She tells him.

"Nice car, by the way. You're welcome to park it in the garage, if you ever want to. I'll make sure you get a prime spot down there."

She steps over to him to offer him a hug, should he take it. It's not overly cold outside, but it is a chilly Spring evening.

"Thank you for showing up the other night... We really had a hairy situation on our hands." Babs says with a grimly dry edge to her tone of voice. "It went about as good as we could've hoped for though, I guess."

The prisoner was successfully transported, and only the Judge's life was taken... though it's been declared a suicide, even if the Joker was somehow involved with what he'd done inside the Judge's chamber's shortly before she hung herself.

But otherwise, the night had gone as good as something of that nature could've.

"How are you?" Babs then asks him in a soft voice, standing there with her arms going down to her sides, her hands slipping in to the pockets of her coat.

Jason Todd has posed:
Jason Todd doesn't like it when anyone compares him to Bruce. For a lot of reasons. But in this moment he is internally impressed with what Barbara has set up in the clock tower. And the blimp. It's all.. well. Sorcery to him. He can use computers. But all this is lightyears beyond. He's impressed but he won't admit it out loud.

Walking out to stand closer to her, he spares a glance to the Blimp then back. "Not the only one with pretty a pretty sweet ride." An almost smile follows it. He's trying.

Frowning, he reaches up to rub the back of his head a moment. "I mean. I guess showing up in civvies it was okay to be seen out front coming to visit a family friend.." maybe not?

Then she offers a hug and he tenses. Not because -she- hugged him. Because -anyone- offered him a hug.

But.. after only a fraction of a second tensing, he figures out what to do with his arms and returns the hug. It's.. nice.

Stepping back he listens and nods in silence as she talks about the courthouse riot.

"Of course.." it sounds so lame. Failure to Small Talk. Just like Someone Else tends. "Glad to have helped. Plus it was the closest we've been to seeing him in a while. If he'd actually shown up I was going to be there to help k.. bring him in." The 'k' only barely forms before he swallows it but if anyone is going to miss that misstep it surely wouldn't be Barbara.

How is he doing? He glances away from her, not wanting to look her in the eyes. "I'm fine." Not really. Pausing he laughs darkly. "Haven't been sleeping well since." Finally he looks to her. If anyone could understand or relate, it'd be Barbara.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
The Blimp has moved off to the north quite a ways by now, but its propulsion systems are still audible softly on the winds. When Jason speaks of it, Babs looks over her right should, then back to him with a grin. "I have a hard time containing myself around it. It was always a part of my father's job that I wanted to know more about, but they never let people go up in them... call it a life goal, completed. I can retire now." She jokes there at the end, showing a smirk.

When he says he hasn't been sleeping well, Babs pulls her left hand out of her coat pocket, and reaches it out to his shoulder. She'll place it there, and let the wramth of her hand seep through to his arm as she offers him a knowing squeeze.

"I get it." She says quietly back to him. "Believe me."

Her hand drops away then, and she motions for him to follow her back inside.

"Had anything for dinner? I was thinking of ordering out. Not sure what yet though.... Chinese sounds kinda fantastic tonight."

Babs will pull open the glass door to the interior of her penthouse. She steps inside, and starts to remove her coat. Pulling it off, she slips it over the classic-style Noir Detective coat rack that is sitting beside the balcony door, showing off her black long sleeved Henley shirt she's wearing under it, along with simple dark blue jeans, and black sneakers with white trim.

"Happy to place an order for whatever you'd like though, if you're hungry."

She steps over to the small stairs that lead down to the living area of her apartment's main level, her hands pushing her long sleeves up to her elbows then. "Joker... was there. I'm sure of it. He just knew better than to show his face. He knows ... He definitely knows." She adds with a grimmer tone, and a smirk toward Jason before she turns to move down those few steps to the main level, and toward her sofa area.

Jason Todd has posed:
Jason Todd can't help but grin at the life goals of owning a blimp. It _is_ pretty cool.

"C'mon, Barbara. None of us are ever going to retire."

This time he doesn't flinch as she touches his shoulder but his jaw sure works overtime, clenching. After a moment he nods and replies, his voice tight. "I know Barbara. I.." what is there to say? The time for being sorry has long past for both of them. Turning he falls in a few steps behind her and goes back inside.

"Hmm? Oh. No. I guess I haven't. I'd just wanted to, y'know.." he shrugs, "I thought I should see how you were doing with it all."

Following after her he nods, "He does. But it won't stop him. He's going to come out. This was.. just the opening act. For something. It isn't like him to just play gopher and pop up for a cameo. I'm sure he'll have something else soon." Maybe Jason just hopes he does.

"Food does sound good. Take out would be fine. Unless" he glances to her curiously, "you want to get out of Rapunzel's Tower and actually go eat someplace?" He offers a cavalier wink. "I don't mind driving."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Babs ends up by the leather sofa in her living area at the center of the main room. She gathers up her phone which had been laying there since before she'd gone outside. She is about to raise it up to start searching for delivery when Jason makes that last suggestion. This earns babs turning around to face him, holding her phone in front of her stomach. She has a slow grin appear on her visage as her right brow arches up, her left lowers, and her eyes look up to the corner of the room... in thought.

"Go outside... when all my toys are here..."

She's kidding, of course, and those who know her best can spot it fast.

She then smiles at him, and tucks her phone in to her side pocket on her jeans. "That sounds great, actually." She tells him. "Let me just grab a couple things, and I'll be ready to go."

"You gotta surprise me though, with whatever place you enjoy most. I wanna know where it is that the elusive Jason Todd dines most often." She says, now showing a grin as she walks toward the steps up to her computer monitoring station. Little hopping jumps take her up those few steps, and she's over at her keyboards in a flash to gather up a couple items off of it, likely related to her security monitoring of the whole building, and the city beyond.

Because you can take the girl out of the tower, but the tower 'comes with her', at least in some aspects!

"Alright." She says with a light exhale before she starts back toward him. "Lets go check out this fancy car of yoursl, shall we?"

Jason Todd has posed:
Jason Todd may not know her as closesly as her team, but he isn't oblivious. He nods and plays along. "I know.. the idea of unplugging.. it has to be torture.." he grins.

"Sure." He moves toward the elevator to wait for her to get her things and coat. He sees her grabbing enough to be able to support the Family while on the move and smiles. There isn't a protest. It's just part of This Life. When she moves over to the elevator he snorts. "The place I dine most often, you don't want to go." Most likely she has some clue about his usual routine as she keeps track of everyone after all. He eats at the 14th Street Garage and other than Church The Cat, he eats alone nine and a half times out of ten.

Letting her enter first he follows and grins as they return to the street level, "Well.. I am pretty proud of the car..."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
There's a second coat rack by the lift doors, from which Barbara grabs a different jacket from what she'd had out on the balcony. This time, on her way in to the lift, she's sweeping a slim-fit leather jacket of black around her shoulders, sorting it out over her form as he joins her inside the lift.

She laughs softly, tucking the items she'd swiped from her desk in to interior pockets of the leather jacket now. "Fine. So lets hit up a place that neither of us have been to before then? Since we're both recluses."

She shows him a large smile in the dim spot lighting of the lift before she reaches out to the touch-screen panel which serves as the 'buttons'. The same panel that he went all crazy on on his way up a few minutes ago.

Barbara just gracefully taps one button on the screen, and the lift has them going along.

"I'll admit, I've meant to try and reach out to you several times... the Birds have just kept me busy, and when not them... well, everything else. But that's no excuse. I am sorry I haven't reached out sooner." She tells him, looking to him from behind the lenses of her glasses. "We uh... we got a bit of a morbid kinship, as I know you're well aware of, and I just want you to know that if you ever need someone to talk to... you're always welcome here."

Jason Todd has posed:
Jason Todd actually laughs. "I said the place I usually eat isn't great on atmosphere. Unless you like a cat trying to mooch off your plate. Not that I don't get out to eat once in a while." He offers a mysterious smile. "I think I've got a place that'll work."

As she deftly 'drives' her elevator controls he mutters, "Might be a bunch of finger prints all over that you'll need to clean off... thought it was a PS7 or something.." he jokes.

Once outside, he steps ahead of Barbara quickly to go around and open the passenger door for her. Once she's inside, he closes it easily and moves around to get into the driver's seat.

The car starts with a deep, almost angry rumble that hints at many of the modifications he's made.

As she talks about the two of them being out of touch he smiles a little and steers out onto the street. "Barbara? It's okay. You've got.. all kinds of responsibility. No one, least of all me, holds that against you." He looks over to meet her gaze. "We do. And it's a two way street. You need to talk to someone sometime too. Not even Bruce understands."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Once inside the car, Babs spares a moment's look around at its interior before her gaze goes over to him when he starts it up. "Nice." She has to comment about the rumble of the engine. "You've gotten good with these things." She notes, since cars are one of her many hobbies too... since she built her own Batmobile based on the studying she did while having a lot of free time back in the 'chair' days.

Her eyes go forward then as they start the drive, but she does dart them back to him on her left. "Why do you think I've spent so much time designing artificial general intelligence large language models?" She asks with a pause before grinning. "So I don't have to pay a therapist."

Her hands come up and she does a little drum motion, adding. "Badum Tish!" Because she has to keep up her nerdy sense of humor too!

Dropping her hands to her lap then, the redhead just grins lightly. "I uh... know what you mean though. I try to just... put up a tough wall, for everyone else. I don't know if you've noticed or not, but there's a lot of us these days, and just about all of us have fucked up histories." She casts him another smirk at that.

Jason Todd has posed:
Jason Todd accelerates quickly. Even daily driving is done fast. It's kind of a part of things. Still he doesn't drive recklessly.

"Oh sure. Because we all know that talking to Skynet about our feelings will -never- bring about the end of the world and the rise of the machines.." he says with his own dark humor. As she rimshots he laughs. It's short but it's there. He seems to be relaxing, just a little.

"I get it, Barbara." He glances over briefly. "There are a -lot- of things.. I just don't want to remember or relive. For a while I thought the Lazarus Pit had scrubbed all that clean." He shakes his head, "It didn't."

Turning a corner, he follows up, "I could guess it has to be harder for you. With your memory."

He sighs slowly. "It sucks, huh?"

Then to try and lighten things a little he goes back to car talk.

"I saw that.. that's a nice bit of work you did on that. A lot more menacing than this.." he can't help but grin. "At least till I steer down a dark alley and activate the alternate driving mode..."

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Now it's Babs' turn to laugh a bit at the Skynet comment. She slowly nods her head to it. "Yeah... that movie really did the AI reputation in for decades, and maybe more to come. I think a good AGI is a reflection of those who make it though. So less like Terminator in the future, and more like... super heroes fighting super villains in the digital world? If that makes any sense..."

She draws in a breath then through her nose, raises one hand up then to take off her glasses, since they are a light prescription anyway. Slipping them in to a pocket on her jacket interior too, Babs glances over at him now without them.

She considers what he says, smiles at the bit about her own mechanic skills, and then sucks in her bottom lip as she considers something... Her gaze goes forward out of the car.

She shakes her head side to side softly once. "I don't remember a lot about the night that I got my visit from him. I remember just before it. I remember some of the ambulance ride afterward. I remember waking up to my father being there. But yeah... I think the bulk of my torture came when they presented me with 'the chair'. The first iteration of it anyway. The crappy, cobweb covered, chair from a storage room."

She draws in a little breath then, and puts her eyes back over on him. "We're a cheery people, for similar reasons, I think."

Jason Todd has posed:
"That and the Matrix.. " he nods, "I understand. And, again, if it was anyone but you? I don't think most of those you work with would trust Oracle. If anyone would know how to teach, uh, her? Some sort of morality and ethics, it's without question one Barbara Gordon."

He falls quiet as she shares things he imagines very few have heard. Honestly it's not unlike veterans exchanging stories about battles. Those who were not there cannot understand, try as they might.

He nods as she talks about the chair. "I don't doubt it. The fact you've been able to fight through it all. Everything. And regained just about all, if not all, of your life back." He shrugs, "They say living well is the best revenge." But here is where the anger that has always been at the core of one Jason Todd threatens to boil over.

"I try. But. Every time I think of.. -him- .. " His knuckles turn white as he grips the steering wheel. Still, he remains in control, not driving as though the anger had taken over.

"We have cheer." He sighs softly, closing his eyes for a heartbeat as he brings the car to a stop at a red light. "But that doesn't mean we don't have dark moments. I think if anyone is, we're allowed that." But of the two, it seems clear which one struggles with finding a way out of that darkness.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
At first, Babs is just looking out at the city street beyond the windows of Jason's noisy car, but when he opens up some, she's back to looking directly at him beside her. She processes what he says, and she does catch his grip tightening on the steering wheel. She doesn't linger her gaze on his hands long though, instead sending her sight back on to his face.

She just lets the silence linger for a moment at the stop light.

"I'd like to have my 20s back." She finally says to him in a soft tone of her otherwise soothing voice. "But... if in truth, you asked me about it... I'd have to weigh the pros and the cons. Which might sound odd, in so far as to suggest that there were pros to being shot in the back... But, I lived. That in itself is a pro, right?" Her head gently shakes, her eyes go out to watch a couple crossing the road with a umbrella held up between them.

"I've met a lot of people in the past decade that I might not have met otherwise... people that I'm grateful to have in my life now. I've... learned so much about subjects that I probably would not have researched if it hadn't happened to me..."

She puts her emerald gaze back over on him. "Those are pros too, right?" She questions, but doesn't entirely wait for a response. "That's the thing, Jason. That's what I would say is key to this. To look for pros, even in the darkest places." She then shows him another little smile.

"Preachy me."

Jason Todd has posed:
Jason Todd waits for the couple to cross the street. And in spite of an impatient car behind them that honks when the couple is far enough across that Jason could sneak past them, he ignores the other driver and lets the couple get a proper distance across before he makes the turn.

"I don't doubt any of that, Barbara. In the end, you had things worse than I did." Kind of funny to say but it isn't wrong.

"I had to deal with 'his' form of hospitality for a few days. But then." He shrugs a shoulder. Boom. "I was gone. I'm not as good as you are." He laughs bitterly at himself. "As if it weren't obvious to everyone. You? You chose to fight. To work. To accept what I'm sure was extremely painful as you recovered."

He falls quiet for a moment, sparing a glance to her eyes before looking back to the road, thankful he has an excuse to not make prolonged eye contact for fear she'd realize just how broken he is. "Me? I didn't fight my way back. I lost. If it weren't for Talia and the... pit... I'd still be gone and the only one that would consider beating themselves up over it would be Bruce."

"Sometimes I wonder if Talia chosing to bring me back wasn't actually an act of cruelty toward Bruce. Now he has to continue to see what a failure he was in trying to rescue a fuck up off the streets and rehabilitate him into some hero."

He looks out the window as they cross the bridge out of Gotham heading toward Bludhaven, well out of either of their usual 'areas'. He seems to have someplace in mind though, it isn't just aimless driving after all.

"I wish I was as strong as you, Barbara. I do. But I'm not because whenever it is that I see him again?" His jaw sets, but instead of finishing the thought, he leaves it unspoken. Maybe that, itself, is progress. Or just a demonstration of that weaker nature he referred to.

Barbara Gordon has posed:
Truth is, Barbara has been analyzing him since he'd arrived at the tower. She's no therapist, but she does feel she understands people quite well. Plus, she's dealt with a large number of youthful heroes who've had troubled lives. You /could/ even say she's an expert! But, don't go buying her any certificates to frame and hang up on a wall!

She eyes him, peacefully staring at him as he drives. "You're not a fuck up." She finally tells him. "You're a young man, still like what... twenty four?" She asks. "You got your whole damn life ahead of you, Jason. A 'fuck up' implies it's all done, and all broken. You are barely out the front door on life. So don't start declaring it done and broken."

She says these things in a soft tone, not aggressive or offended, or anything of that sort.

"You have every right to want to pay him back too. I don't fault you for it one damn bit..."

She looks ahead then, her hands atop her thighs as she rubs them smoothly over her denim jeans. "I... uh... I kept the bullet." She says then. "I had it in a display case for the past decade. I had it reforged... if that's the right term... to make it functional again. I wanted to... load it up, spin the cylinder, aim it at the clown's nose, and pull the trigger."

She draws in a breath through her nose, then lets it slide back out again. Her eyes go back over to him once more. "I threw it away a few months back. I don't need that kind of hate in my life. It was a symbol of hate. It was just there, in that case, staring at me every time I walked by it. It was rotten. A blight. I realized it had to go, in order for me to focus on the good things. The better things. The things that make me laugh, smile, feel good inside. If I kept the damn thing in a case, I may as well never even have had it removed from my spine..."